When Striving To Be Healthy and Calm Stresses You Out

Do you find yourself stressed out about trying hard not to be stressed? Ironically, the pressure to be calm and healthy can sometimes make our well intentioned efforts to eat well, meditate and exercise feel forced.

What if when we’re rushing to that yoga class, scrambling to make time to meditate, squeezing in our daily affirmations, and powering through our meal planning to-do’s, it’s all just another more socially acceptable version of that controlling and striving energy that’s at the root of our anxiety, frustration or discontent.

As you know, I love sharing strategies for having more calm, ease and flow.

But if there’s one thing I know it’s that there is no amount of tips and tricks that can keep us balanced until we accept one fundamental truth: most things in life you have zero control over.

All of us have a little control freak or worry wart inside us so when we resist this truth we can end up putting our energy in the wrong places.

In other words, there’s no shortage of wellness tools that can send you into an unconscious spiral of just more “doing-ness”, clinging obsessivley to a new diet, exercise or supplement to make you feel you’ve got it under control when ultimately those strategies prove to be shortlived and create even more stress.

When it comes to true well being I believe that having a balanced sense of control is fundamental.

And it all begins with remembering that the only thing in life that we have control over is our own attitude. As the saying goes, attitude is everything. It’s the lens through which you see the world and therefore defines how you approach life.

Developing strategies to manage our atttitude is not easy, it’s a real inside-out kind of effort. But, unlike the latest fitness fad or diet gimmick, it’s a worthwhile endeavor that benefits your body, mind and spirit for a lifetime.